Psychologist Association Ethics Chief Paid $10,000s for Training Advisers to Guantanamo Interrogations

Back in May 2015, I broke the story that the American Psychological Association's "long-time Ethics Director Stephen Behnke worked directly with Department of Defense officials in creating a training curriculum for psychologists working with interrogators at Guantanamo and elsewhere." The issue was later taken up in the July 2015 "independent review" on APA collaboration with the Department of Defense, CIA, and FBI on national security interrogations released by David Hoffman and co-workers at the law firm Sidley Austin (see PDF for full report).

The Hoffman report did a decent job looking at Behnke's work with the Department of Defense on the establishment and training of psychologists and other behavioral health specialists, including sometimes psychiatrists, to work for DoD's Behavioral Science Consultation Teams, or BSCTs. (For alternate view, see note below.) The BSCTs were formed to offer advice and guidance to interrogators at Guantanamo and other DoD interrogation sites, and to the guard and detention force at Guantanamo as well.

Today, BSCTs help facilitate Army Field Manual Appendix M interrogations, which use isolation, sleep and sensory deprivation, and environmental and dietary manipulations, as well as other AFM interrogation techniques, such as "Emotional-Futility," to purposely prolong the "shock of capture," and create a "sense of hopelessness and helplessness" and futility in prisoners being interrogated. (See PDF of AFM.)

Mentioned in passing in the Hoffman report was the amount of money Behnke received in what was a clear conflict of interest, as on one hand he presented himself to the public as an ethics expert working for a professional psychological association, offering his advice on the torture controversy to APA members and the public at large. On the other hand, he was paid a good deal of money to help train adjuncts to ethically problematic if not abusive interrogations.

Behnke has said he did not personally profit from the trainings. He told the Hoffman/Sidley investigators that any money he received was turned over to APA, minus any travel expenses, and that APA used the money for "educational purposes" or programs. Where exactly that money went within APA -- and Behnke said he handed it directly over to the Ethics Office -- has never been precisely enumerated. The issue in any case is not only the money (prior to 2011, Behnke said he was paid $1500 per workshop, and $5000 per workshop in later years), but the unethical method by which Behnke and others kept the association with the BSCTs hidden.

According to the Hoffman report (p. 360):

Shortly after Behnke’s first training in April 2006, he and [BSCT psychologist Col. Debra] Dunivin explicitly discussed not telling APA’s Board about his participation in the BSCT training program. And in fact, it appears that APA’s Board was never made aware of his participation, his status as a DoD contractor, or these payments from DoD to APA. On June 18, 2006, Dunivin emailed Behnke (copying [Special Forces psychologist, Morgan] Banks) and asked, “Did you report to APA Board about participating in training at Ft Huachuca? I know we talked about waiting to report it out... What do you think, Morgan?” Behnke replied that the Board did not know, and implied that keeping quiet about it might be the best strategy: “I’ve not mentioned it to the Board; after my last meeting with the Board, I expect that it would receive the Board’s full support. I have informed my APA supervisors, naturally, but given how hot things are at the moment discretion may be the better part of valor for the time being, at least in terms of the broader APA community.”

Behnke did in fact tell his supervisor, APA Deputy CEO Michael Honaker, that he was regularly giving a paid ethics lecture at an Army base as part of the interrogation training course for BSCT psychologists.1679 Honaker did not provide this information to CEO Norman Anderson or the Board. When Anderson learned from Sidley during the investigation that Behnke had been providing this training as a DoD contractor, he appeared stunned, and was visibly upset that the matter had not been discussed with the Board.

Guantanamo has been widely condemned as inhumane and a torture site, even under the Obama administration administration, where conditions of indefinite detention, violent forced cell extractions, drugging of prisoners for "chemical restraint," and multiple suicides have taken place. In addition, the Obama administration reliance on the current Army Field Manual (2-22.3) on interrogation is problematic, according to UN monitoring agencies, who said some of the techniques allowed in that manual's Appendix M amount to "ill treatment" and raise concerns of torture.

The UN issued a report criticizing the Army Field Manual's Appendix M in late 2014, but as we shall see below, both APA and Behnke continued to work teaching "ethics" to those who used or consulted on use of Appendix M as recently as last year.

Dr. Behnke and his APA associates certainly knew of the controversies over interrogation, including by Appendix M methods, but chose to offer their services to DoD, while hiding them from APA rank-and-file and the public at large. Behnke was later fired by the Board. His supervisor, former Deputy CEO at APA, Michael Honaker, "retired."

The Contracts Released by Hoffman/APA

Below is a list of known contracts Behnke was involved in. The earliest available for perusal is from December 2010. The most recent available is from February 2015. Prior to 2012, Behnke was listed as the contractor; afterwards, APA itself is listed as contractor. According to Hoffman's narrative of events (pages 358-361 in his report), Behnke said he worked as a contractor doing training for and designing curriculum for training the BSCTs since 2006. Hence the list below is by no means complete, only what has been made thus far publicly available.

In the contract for Behnke's 2010 work for DoD, he is described as having "been associated with the BSCT course since its inception several years ago. He is viewed as an expert in this field." (All quoted material and data on Behnke's contracts are from Binder #3 of the material released by APA to accompany the Hoffman report. See PDF of this portion of the material, and this link for all associated materials to the Hoffman report.)

2/17/15 - Contractor: APA
Issuer: USA Medcom - HCAA
Amount: $10,000
“Provide Behavioral Science Consultation course”

1/22/14 - Contractor: APA
Issuer: USA Medcom - HCAA
Amount: $10,000 - BSCT SME Instuctor DSB

1/25/2013 - Contractor: APA Issuer: Great Plains Regional Contracting Office, USA Medcom -HCAA
Modify earlier contract, no $ amount specified - "CLIN 0001... Contractor will provide a Behavioral Science Consultation Team (BSCT) Course"

12/19/12 - Contractor: APA Issuer: USA Medcom –HCAA (Health Care Acquisition Activity) - Amount: $14,999
BSCT instructor – 3 1-day classes

12/20/11 - Contractor: Stephen Behnke Issuer: USA Medcom -HCAA - Amount: $15,000
BSCT Guest speaker providing course – 3 1-day classes

12/22/10 - Contractor: Stephen Behnke Issuer: Great Plains Regional Contracting Office, Brooke Army Medical Center, Fort Sam Houston - Amount: $7,497
Guest Speaker, consultant to, BSCT training, 3 (1) day trainings

Terms of Contracts

The classes were of 12-16 students per training, and conducted at the Army's Ft. Huachuca Intelligence Center and School.

The training will be conducted at Ft. Huachuca at the Intelligence Center and School. The target audience is composed of military psychologists (psychiatrists occasionally) and enlisted behavioral health specialists assigned in support of interrogation/detainee operations....
The services required to meet the agency's needs are to provide behavioral health personnel training in support of interrogation/detainee operations. Topics to be addressed and therapeutic materials:
* Ethics involved in performing duties as a BSCT
* American Psychological Association's view on torture
* American Psychiatric Association's view on torture
* MEDCOM/OTSG Policy on utilizing BSCTs
* FM2-22.3 Human Intelligence Operations
* How to remain Safe, Legal, Ethical and Effective as a BSCT

It is worth noting that the contract language in the latter contracts stated, "OTSG [Office of the Surgeon General]/MEDCOM policy Memo 09-053 (Behavioral Science Consultation Policy) requires that all active duty Psychologist, Forensic Psychiatrist, and Behavioral Science Technicians, serving in a BSCT role be trained in the core principles of interrogation and the psychology of persuasion."

The 2012 contract stated: "This contract will consist of training conducted on 'Ethical Decision Making' under guidance and direction. The trainer and facilitator will provide guidance, eduction and knowledge in learning and application of ethical principles within Behavioral Science Consultants Teams. Once trained, BSTC [sic] will provide safe, legal, ethical and effective consultative services to Interrogators, Detention Guards, Intelligence Commanders and Detention Commanders using the sound ethical principles."

There's a lot to ponder in the full information on Behnke's contract. The reason to publish this particular post is to bring more of the full story of unethical behavior at APA into the open.

But it is not only APA's actions that are notable. One thing I found interesting is how long, even really to the present day, the training of the BSCTs to help interrogators remains something contracted through DoD's health services. What is that about? Perhaps it has something to do with drawing BSCT personnel often out of current medical military personnel. In any case, the blurring between medicine and the world of interrogation and torture remains a feature of DoD's ongoing interrogation concept. Additionally, the full story of the ongoing role of the Office of the Surgeon General, or the Army Medical Services in working with military intelligence and detention officials remains somewhat obscure.

There's plenty to still investigate on the torture scandal, but the appetite to do so remains vanishingly small, particularly in Congress. Indeed, there is nothing in the supposedly "progressive" platform of the Democratic Party about any kind of accountability for past torture, nor any indication that the abusive Army Field Manual should be changed or withdrawn. I don't expect to see any change in a Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump administration either.

-- Added Note (8/7/16): After this posting was published, I had some feedback on Twitter to the effect that my conclusions were unfair to the military psychologists involved, that they were not involved in any torture or were ever found to be, and that in essence, I didn't know what I was talking about. In previous postings I've given links to a website where these psychologists, including Debra Dunivin and Morgan Banks, mentioned above, have posted letters, relevant documents, etc. I do recommend the interested reader peruse their site at www.hoffmanreportapa.

While I disagree with their point of view, the psychologists who put together hoffmanreportapa.com have done a service in posting links to many valuable documents. See their "references" page.

The most recent statement by the group is dated August 2, 2016 and is signed by Colonel (Ret.) L. Morgan Banks, Colonel (Ret.) Debra L. Dunivin, Colonel (Ret.) Larry C. James, and Dr. Russ Newman. In the format of a reply to a recent posting by anti-torture activist, psychologist Stephen Soldz, the reply document states that the Hoffman report’s conclusions are incorrect, "especially the claim that APA and DoD officials colluded to ensure the PENS Guidelines would not constrain abusive interrogations."

Banks, et al. believe that DoD documents in place already made clear that torture was unacceptable. They say that Hoffman characterized the "normal organizational process of creating policy as 'collusion,'" and misread certain sections of the APA's PENS report on ethics and national security. Even more, they maintain that military psychologists in national security settings "can be a strong bulwark against abuses." They say that "DoD psychologists became a primary force for trying to end abusive interrogations." This is certainly a key argument by any who would feel Stephen Behnke was in fact trying to prevent torture by lecturing to BSCTs, and that there is nothing untoward about his contracting to do so.

I was particularly interested in Banks, et al. claim that a June 9, 2015 press release by "seven human rights and civil liberties organizations, including the ACLU and Physicians for Human Rights, [which] supported the McCain-Feinstein Amendment to the Detainee Treatment Act." Banks et al. note, "The release does not criticize Appendix M, which specifies the stringent restrictions placed on the use of separation (the military’s term) or isolation (the critics’ preferred term). It is worth noting that the APA likewise gave strong support to the McCain-Feinstein Amendment both before and following the release of the Hoffman report."

Banks, et al. are correct about this press release, and I was sharply critical of this press release by ACLU and others in a June 13, 2015 article I posted at this site.

But Banks, et al. must ignore the many writings by human rights organizations that have been very critical of Appendix M. Indeed, in a March 11, 2016 article by Deb Reichmann at Associated Press, Raha Wala, senior counsel for defense and intelligence at Human Rights First is quoted as saying, "We have been asking for changes to the Army Field Manual and Appendix M in particular for years now... There hasn't been momentum. I now sense that in the first time in years, there is a real interest in looking at it."

In the same article, Mark Fallon, who leads the research committee of the Obama administration's multiple agency High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group, said, "I don't think there's much validity to Appendix M... I think it can open the door to the types of abuses we have seen before."

Hence, there is a gulf of difference in opinion between myself and other APA and U.S. government critics and the people at hoffmanreportapa.com. Interested readers should pursue the relevant documents and decide for themselves who makes the stronger case.

APA Torture & Ethics Scandal Highlights Fact No Medical Professionals Have Been Held to Account for Torture

In her very interesting analysis of the American Psychological Association's new policy calling for withdrawal of psychologists from national security interrogations and sites identified with torture and abuse, such as Guantanamo, Deborah Popowski ("The APA’s Watershed Move to Ban Psychologists’ Complicity in Torture," August 11) writes:

I predict that ultimately, this resolution [Motion 23B passed by APA's Council of Representatives] will be more powerful than its AMA and American Psychiatric Association counterparts precisely because it took years of dogged advocacy to achieve. The APA’s bad behavior was a mobilizing force for psychologists of conscience. The organization now faces a savvy group of reformers that understand its playbook and will keep pressing for enforcement. I look forward to seeing how they ride this wave of momentum.

I think this is a good point, but it, like most of the analysis on the APA's new interrogations policy has a certain unreal character, as its analysis exists outside of the realities of the Department of Defense justifies its use of health professionals, including psychologists and psychiatrists, in interrogations.

DoD and the American Psychiatric Association "Ban" on Psychiatrists in Interrogations

Popowski mentions AMA and the American Psychiatric Association (APsyA) because both of these practitioner groups previously issued policies forbidding their members to participate in interrogations. Such participation is unethical, they said, although the psychiatrist's group did allow their members to "provide training to military or civilian investigative or law enforcement personnel... on the possible medical and psychological effects of particular techniques and conditions of interrogation..."

But what these powerful organizations condemn and how they enforce these policies are two different things. In addition, how the Pentagon chooses to interpret the policies of these organizations is yet another thing.

In a September 2008 letter to then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, the APsyA president, Dr. Nada Stotland, quoted an article by George Annas, who noted, "The DOD's new position that its physicians not follow nationally and internationally accepted medical ethics represents a major policy change." Stotland was complaining about how the Pentagon continued to train psychiatrists for interrogation despite the APsyA's opposition to the their participation. It is not known if or how Gates replied, but DoD's policy in the matter itself never changed.

But the psychiatrist association itself never put any teeth in their policy. It never moved to sanction any member for participation in interrogations, which is done under the auspices of the Pentagon's Behavioral Science Consultation (BSC) program. Later, then-APA president Gerald Koocher would use APsyA's stated preference not to bring any such charges as an example of the rightness of APA's own policy. (See "President's Column," APA Monitor, July/August 2006)

Indeed, no doctor, psychiatrist, psychologist, nurse, medical technician, or any medical professional involved in interrogations has ever been brought up on charges by any medical or professional association. Attempts to bring charges by state licensing agencies were undertaken by private individuals -- attempts with which Ms. Popowski has assisted -- and such attempts universally failed (thus far), though not for trying.

But as important as the attempts to get at the torturers via licensing board complaints are, is a strategy aimed at prosecution via state licensing agencies really going to be effective? As one state licensing agency official told me, "How do you expect us to prosecute these cases when the U.S. government will not do so?" It would indeed take a great deal of courage to buck the federal government. There is also the issue that legal actions against health professionals would be subject to "graymail" defenses, in that defendants will argue that (supposedly, or potentially) exonerating evidence is classified and highly unlikely to be made available from the government. What happens then?

Applicable DoD policy on BSCs goes back to the 2006 DoD Instruction 2310.08E, "Medical Program Support for Detainee Operations." This policy allows DoD to use psychiatrists or physicians with the approval of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, despite the policy by the American Psychiatric and American Medical associations.

E2.2 As a matter of professional personnel management, physicians are not ordinarily assigned duties as BSCs, but may be so assigned, with the approval of ASD(HA), in circumstances when qualified psychologists are unable or unavailable to meet critical mission needs.

In case some might think this old Bush-era instruction is not in force, it is. The most current policy, DoD Directive 3115.09, "DoD Intelligence Interrogations, Detainee Debriefings, and Tactical Questioning" (in its most up-to-date version of 11/15/13) references the 2006 DoD 2310.08E instruction as "reference (r)", i.e., for policy on BSCs.

Manipulation of Phobias

It's worth noting, 3115.09 has also made allowance for the ongoing use of SERE techniques, as they are used in the Army Field Manual, which I pointed out some time back. The only recent change in 3115.09 has to do with BSC manipulation of detainee phobias, a change that has not been publicly noted before: "Behavioral science consultants may not be used to determine detainee phobias for the purpose of exploitation during the interrogation process." That appears to be the one concession made by the Obama administration to criticisms of its interrogation policy. The reference was to phobias as addressed in Army Field Manual 2-22.3 in its description of the "Fear Up" approach. Before this change was made in 2012, BSCs were allowed to manipulate or create phobias in prisoners in a style of coercive interrogation that an earlier version of the Field Manual noted some nations -- though not the United States -- would find illegal.

The fact is, the opponents of existing policy at APA, not to mention officers at AMA, APsyA, and a number of human rights watchdog groups are aware of current Pentagon policy on using physicians in interrogations in lieu of psychologists, and despite the opposition on paper of physicians organizations, but nothing is ever said about it. One has to ask why this is. Psychologists, who still have a fight on their hands in making the new APA policy enforceable within APA, have not mentioned DoD's policy on such use, about which nothing has changed since the days of the Bush administration.

The Enforcement Question

Except for an Aug. 8 article in Al Jazeera America, no news accounts have noted that when APA opponents of the old interrogation policy were putting forth their motion to ban members from participation in interrogations or at sites where human rights abuses take place, the first draft of that motion had a strong enforcement proviso, which stated, "Be it resolved that the APA will direct staff to contact the licensing boards of all states and territories informing them that it is the sense of the Council of Representatives that any complaint against a psychologist who refuses to comply with the call to leave Guantanamo be reviewed ‘with prejudice’."

The final version of the motion that passed, and is hailed as a victory, omitted that provision. Such a step back from enforcement does not bode well for the future effectiveness of the APA action.

Other arguments regarding the efficacy of enforcing the APA's new policy were raised by psychologist John Grohol at his blog PsychCentral last week. Grohol quoted an August 18, 2015 email from APA’s Associate General Counsel Jesse Raben to psychologist and ethics exert Ken Pope, who resigned from APA in 2008 over APA's slippery ethics policies.

With regards to 23B (and therefore with the 2008 [member-initiated] resolution [banning psychologists from interrogation at human rights violating sites]) while this new Council resolution invokes Ethical Principle A to “take care to do no harm,” it does not amend the Ethics Code and is not enforceable as a result [emphasis added]. However, Council’s implementation plan for the new policy requests that the Ethics Committee consider a course of action to render the prohibition against national security interrogations enforceable under the Ethics Code.

Grohol's article must have made some impact, because Nadine Kaslow and Susan McDaniel, both members of the Special Committee for the Independent Review by David Hoffman that excoriated APA's connivance with the Department of Defense on interrogation issues, responded to Grohol's charges in an email to APA's Division 48, The Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict, and Violence. (Kaslow is also an APA past president, while McDaniel is the organization's president-elect.)

APA Officials Respond

Kaslow and McDaniel's full reply is not online, but what follows is an edited version of the high points. The two APA officials sympathized with Grohol's skepticism, but felt "that this reaction is misplaced at this time in the history of APA."

The authority and processes regarding policy development and modifications to the APA Ethics Code are stipulated in APA’s Bylaws and Association Rules. The first very important step is for a policy, such as the national security interrogation prohibition, to be passed by Council. For those policies with ethical aspects such as this one, the next step is for it to be considered by the Ethics Committee. The independence of the Ethics Committee is important, as described in the Hoffman Report. According to our Bylaws and Association Rules, the Ethics Committee has authority for formulating the Ethics Code, overseeing the process for changing the Ethics Code (which involves governance review and public comment), and for enforcing it. The movers of New Business Item #23B -- Scott Churchill, Jean Maria Arrigo, and Frank Farley, supported by Steven Reisner and Dan Aalbers -- were well aware of the necessary process. They successfully achieved the policy change, the all-important first step to achieving their ultimate goal of an enforceable prohibition, in keeping with the American Medical Association. (The American Psychiatric Association's policy is not part of their Ethics Code.)

.... The movers also included a provision in the implementation section of the resolution for Council to request that the Ethics Committee "consider pursuing an appropriate course of action in as expeditious a manner as possible to incorporate into the Ethics Code the prohibitions surrounding psychologist participation in national security interrogations, as set forth in this policy." The next step is for the Ethics Committee to carry out this recommendation. An amendment to the Ethics Code will provide the necessary “teeth” for the policy to be enforced. In the interim, I would like to point out that the Ethics Committee considers APA policies, guidelines, and other documents when interpreting the Standards of the Ethics Code.

.... As noted above, although the 2013 policy is not enforceable under the Ethics Code, it provides valuable guidance to the Ethics Committee in this regard....

Changing policy, aspects of the Ethics Code, and creating a culture that is transparent and trustworthy in all parts of the organization will take time and considerable effort. But it is a commitment we feel deeply in support of our public, our discipline, and our members....

Reading Kaslow and McDaniel's email, I think Ms. Popowski may have a point about the sanguinary effect of the new APA policy. From my own standpoint, I believe it was a huge step forward for the new APA policy to bring the recondite and legal struggle against the U.S. Reservations to the UN Convention Against Torture treaty out into the open, and put the imprimatur of a huge medical and professional organization behind the goal of removing those reservations, which in action eviscerated enforcement of that treaty in the U.S., and which were used by John Yoo, Jay Bybee and Steven Bradbury to alibi torture in their infamous OLC memos on interrogation.

Loopholes on Unethical Research to Remain

But there are also giant holes in APA's new policy, particularly as it pertains to psychologist research for the military and intelligence agencies. Since that is really where the bulk of federal money to psychologists and psychology programs go, that means the haze of unreality around these issues is a veritable fog of obfuscation. APA ethics code 8.05 allows psychologists to suspend informed consent -- which is the bedrock of ethical research on human subjects -- "where otherwise permitted by law or federal or institutional regulations." In addition, ethics code 8.07 allows psychologists to use deception in research on "prospective participants," unless such deception would be "reasonably expected to cause physical pain or severe emotional distress." The emphasis on "severe" emotional distress is a weakening of earlier language, and allows great discretion for research using deception that would allow, say, "moderate" levels of emotional distress. Indeed, a section of the Hoffman report contains a section on the research issue, and I will examine it more fully in the near future.

Nevertheless, when it comes to interrogations or psychologists presence at national security detention sites, the APA policy is much more stringent that that passed by APsyA or AMA, and demands that psychologists not even involved in interrogations at sites such as Guantanamo be transferred out. But will DoD listen to that? And if psychologists continue to work in such secret circumstances, how will APA or anyone else know? And what if anything will happen about that? I don't imagine anyone in DoD is losing much sleep over this... yet.

There is also the force of moral suasion, which if not terribly powerful, does play some role in historical circumstances. The leaders of the fight against APA's previous torture policy, and against an APA leadership that worked with government forces to allow torture and abuse of prisoners during interrogation and detention, are to be congratulated. I know from private conversations they are aware that more battles lie ahead. I suggest those battles lie directly with the Obama administration itself, and the leadership of other medical professional and human rights organizations to hold the administration's metaphoric feet to the fire, and end the use of all medical professionals in interrogations and under cruel conditions of confinement at so-called national security detention sites that are known to abuse prisoners, like Guantanamo.

Soldz & Reisner's "Comments" to APA on Hoffman Report, with My Initial Thoughts on the Report

As can be seen from the introductory material below, the following material has been granted wide release by its authors. I am reproducing it here with general formatting from the original. A few typos have been quietly corrected.

The "Comments" by Stephen Soldz and Steven Reisner concern the July 10 release of the APA-initiated Hoffman report, "Independent Review Relating to APA Ethics Guidelines, National Security Interrogations, and Torture," conducted by David H. Hoffman of the law firm Sidley Austin LLP. A PDF of the lengthy report can be found here. APA's own press release and their own recommended actions related to the report's release is linked here. An index to the exhibits in the report and five binders of supplementary materials used in the report are posted at APA's website.

Previously, I cited what I believed to be serious questions regarding conflict of interest issues regarding Hoffman and CIA and the RAND Corporation (see here and here). I still believe those were relevant questions to ask, and until I absorb the full report, I cannot say for certain what effect any relationship in particular between Hoffman and the CIA or RAND had in the final version of the report.

In this report, Hoffman stated that he could not get the full story on how the APA interacted with CIA, primarily due to classification issues. Regarding the issue, for instance, of participation of past APA presidents with the CIA, Hoffman had this to say in a key paragraph:

As to the actions and knowledge of the former APA officials listed above (Fox, Gravitz, Matarazzo, and Seligman), some of them were clearly brought closer to the circle of knowledge through important interactions with Hubbard and Mitchell, as described further below. But we did not find evidence that there was a significant link between APA and their interactions or communications with the CIA. It is a fair question whether important interactions between these very prominent former APA officials also entailed, led to, or were connected to important interactions between APA and CIA. Except for very limited instances, we did not see any evidence of this in our examination of APA emails and other documents, and in our interviews, despite having found a very substantial amount of email and documentary evidence establishing important interactions between APA and government officials in other contexts, as set out above and below. On the one hand, this makes sense, since prominent psychologists who are former APA Presidents and Board members would not necessarily think that their interactions with the CIA about these issues would call for them to contact the APA, unless the CIA had specifically requested something from APA. On the other hand, we keenly recognize that in investigating activities involving the CIA, an agency that trains people to keep things secret for a living, we are especially limited in our ability to determine definitively what occurred, and therefore we are aware that our conclusions can only be based on the evidence available to us. This is especially true when the interactions are between CIA officials and individuals who were not APA officials or employees at the time, since their emails would not necessarily have been within APA’s system. [pg. 46 of report]

Furthermore, there are various points were evaluations of the evidence seems unwarranted, or based on interviews and evaluations of credibility that cannot be independently assessed, as in the assertion that "APA did not have the same close and longstanding relationship with the CIA as it did with DoD..." I also believe that Hoffman's dismissal of the import of the 2003 APA-CIA-RAND meeting, and the roles of Kirk Hubbard, Charles "Andy" Morgan, Kirk Kennedy, Susan Brandon, Philip Zimbardo, Martin Seligman, and others, may not be accurate. But I hesitate to say more until I have more fully examined the evidence, particular what has been posted in the over 600 MB of binder material at APA's Hoffman-related webpage.

There is also the significant problem that the entire issue of the controversy over the use of Behavioral Science Consultants in interrogations is posed as something in the past. In fact, as I've made clear recently, the passing of the Feinstein-McCain amendment to the National Authorization Act, which made use of the Army Field Manual a lawful requirement by government interrogators, including the CIA, means that use of BSCs have now the force of law. Much worse, and related, is the fact that the Army Field Manual on interrogations itself contains many abusive and torture-like "techniques" like isolation, sleep and sensory deprivation, use of fear and inducing "hopelessness and helplessness" in detainees, such that it has been condemned by the UN and various human rights organizations. The Hoffman report never references anything in relation to this.

Despite these concerns, and any others I may yet find, the report has provided a wealth of material that is useful to those who oppose unethical use of medical professionals in interrogations, as well as those who oppose torture in general and are trying to unwind the entire story of U.S. involvement in torture. For that I am grateful. The report helps fill in many gaps in our knowledge of how APA interacted with the Department of Defense, both in sidestepping and sabotaging critics, and in managing how APA ethics practice could be made congruent with DoD (and CIA) needs. I agree, however, with Hoffman, that evidence shows that changes to the APA ethics code itself, made in 2002, were not in response to the need to alibi torture, at least not in their inception.

Additionally, it has not passed my notice that the report has important new details on certain stories I covered earlier, including the interrogation and abuse meted out by NCIS to Daniel King, and Stephen Behnke's work helping train the BSCTs.

Also, Hoffman examined changes made to the "Common Rule" governing government-linked human subjects research changes made by Paul Wolfowitz to DoD's own directive on such research, and stated, "it seems likely that the exceptions in the Common Rule and the definitional changes in the Wolfowitz Directive broadened opportunities for DoD to conduct research on detainees subjected to interrogations."  He added, "However, there is no evidence that APA acted to facilitate psychologists’ participation in such research, if it occurred."

Hoffman evidently drew in part upon a lengthy examination of the Wolfowitz Directive and other ethics changes which Jason Leopold and I wrote in October 2010, as he footnoted that article in a section that commented on the weakening of informed consent protections by DoD (pg. 281 of the report).

As regards the rehabilitation of the APA, I am dubious. In my Jan. 2008 public resignation from the APA, I wrote, "I view APA's shifting position on interrogations to spring from a decades-long commitment to serve uncritically the national security apparatus of the United States. Recent publications and both public and closed professional events sponsored by APA have made it clear that this organization is dedicated to serving the national security interests of the American government and military, to the extent of ignoring basic human rights practice and law. The influence of the Pentagon and the CIA in APA activities is overt and pervasive, if often hidden."

Ongoing revelations, including the material in the Hoffman report, strengthens this conclusion from seven years ago. I do not believe that, recent events otherwise, this is going to change.

Now, the U.S. is gearing up for new Cold War with Russia and China, and the use of psychologists and other medical professionals by the military and intelligence services is likely to continue. It would be utopian to believe that APA or any significant organization involved in government contracts and activities would be able to separate itself from such actions. Instead, we might see that a rejuvenated APA, supposedly made clean by a purging of elements, like Behnke, APA's former Ethics chief who was recently fired based on the Hoffman revelations, still working on many elements of strengthening imperialist armed forces aimed at war and conquest, much as medical professionals and their organizations have in the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.

It has not passed my attention, for instance, that the American Psychiatric Association and American Medical Association, both of which have stated policies against the use of their members in interrogations, have never once censored or made charges against any CIA or DoD medical professional for their actions in relation to renditions and torture. As APA proposes to make a similar ban, it is worth considering the worthlessness of how such bans have been implemented, or rather not implemented, at those organizations.

The following are the thoughts and recommendations of key opponents of APA policy on interrogations. I have not evaluated these in any depth, and present them here for public examination and as a key part of the evolving discussion around the APA torture scandal, noting that the authors note their comments are preliminary, and that they, too, have not had time to absorb the full content or import of the Hoffman report.

I thank Stephen Soldz and Steven Reisner for their willingness and dedication to transparency to make these "Opening Comments" to APA a part of the public record. (Update: Dr. Soldz has now added a link to his own posting of the "Comments.")

Folks,

As you know, Steven Reisner and I met with the APA board on July 2. We agreed to confidentiality until the report was public, which happened today. We, therefore, are distributing the Opening Comments that Steven and I made at that meetings. We believe that they provide a guide with which to judge APA’s actions in the coming weeks. Feel free to distribute. [Apologies for cross-posting.] {Ed. note: square brackets in original}

Opening Comments of Stephen Soldz and Steven Reisner to the American Psychological Association Board, July 2, 2015

Last October, James Risen published allegations of American Psychological Association (APA) complicity in the Bush era torture program in his book Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War. In the wake of these allegations, the APA Board in November 2014 commissioned an independent investigation of these allegations. This allegation was conducted by Chicago attorney David Hoffman of Sidley Austin LLC and his colleagues.

In late June, 2015, as they prepared to receive the Hoffman Report, the APA Board asked to meet with us (Steven Reisner and Stephen Soldz). We presume we were asked because over the last nine years we have been leaders of the movement to remove psychologists from abusive and sometimes torturous national security interrogations. Further, we have researched and published extensively on these issues and extensively shared the results of our research with Hoffman and his team. Most recently, we were the psychologist coauthors of the report All the President’s Psychologists: The American Psychological Association’s Secret Complicity with the White House and US Intelligence Community in Support of the CIA’s ”Enhanced” Interrogation Program, which was featured in a May 1, 2015 New York Times article.

The Board requested and we agreed to keep the substance of our discussions confidential until the report became public. However, with the public release of the report, we are now free to speak. Below are our opening comments to the Board.

Stephen Soldz Comments:

Thank you for having us here. I wish it was under less disturbing circumstances. We have come to discuss with you what we believe needs to be done by the American Psychological Association (APA) in the wake of the imminent release of the Hoffman Report. The conditions of confidentiality requested by the Board and agreed to by us have precluded our being able to discuss our ideas with our colleagues who have joined us for the last decade in our attempts to unveil the web of collusion beneath APA’s policies and actions regarding psychologist participation in sometimes abusive national security interrogations. However, our ideas have benefited from hundreds of hours of discussion with colleagues regarding the steps necessary to put APA on an ethical course. We believe that these ideas reflect those of many others besides ourselves, though we also consider it vital that the voices of those many others be actively heard as we proceed.

I would like to make some opening comments, following which Steven Reisner will describe our ideas for the initial steps needed for APA to right itself and weather the storm that is just over the horizon. We would like to emphasize that these comments and ideas were put down less than 48 hours after we obtained access to the 500+ page Report. Neither of us has even read the entire report, much less absorbed it. Thus, these ideas are preliminary and may well be supplemented by others as we fully absorb the report and discuss with colleagues what should be done.

I would like to begin with a very brief summary of what we take to be the gist of this report. The report documents in exhaustive detail the existence of a years long conspiracy to engage in collusion between senior leadership in the APA and the intelligence community, including the CIA and, most notably, the Department of Defense (DOD). This collusion involves a two-pronged strategy by the APA: First, there was a concerted attempt to generate so-called “ethical” policies on psychologist involvement in interrogations that would provide no constraints whatsoever on psychologists in the military working for DOD and other agencies. The second prong consisted of an elaborate deceptive and dishonest public relations strategy to falsely portray APA policy as concerned with the protection of detainee welfare and human rights.

This collusion included the development of apparently fine-sounding policy statements that were, as the report documents, virtually always vetted directly by DOD officials; manipulation of critics of APA policy to ensure that attempts to change that policy were toothless and did not in fact challenge DOD policies or practices; a strategic decision to turn heads away from increasing evidence on torture and other detainee abuse, including homicides, and on psychologist involvement in that abuse; and the dismissal and/or failure to investigate in any serious way ethical complaints against psychologists alleged to have participated in abusive interrogations, accompanied by repeated assurances from APA officials that all complaints would be comprehensively investigated. This collusion was accompanied by systematic manipulation of APA governance procedures, the active solicitation of opposition to critics by APA staff, and even the recording, in at least two known instances, of falsely claimed “unanimous” votes.

This years-long collusion was accompanied by false statements from every Board and every elected President over the last decade denying the existence of the collusion described in such detail by Mr. Hoffman. The collusion was also accompanied by squelching of critics and, sometimes, by personal attacks upon them in the face of overwhelming evidence in the public record, including media reports and the results of multiple government investigations by Congress and other agencies. Most notable, are the vicious personal attacks upon PENS task force member and national hero Jean Maria Arrigo, who first revealed the collusion, attacks that in one case was distributed widely by the president of the Association; responses to those attacks went unanswered by that President or any other Association official. Other critics have been banned from state psychological association listservs; been attacked by an APA president in the official Monitor on Psychology as “opportunistic commentators masquerading as scholars;” been threatened with possible libel suits and ethics complaints; been disinvited from speaking to and writing for state psychological associations; been surreptitiously recorded by APA staff when having a private conversation with reporters; had venues where they were speaking criticized and even implicitly threatened with loss of accreditation; and called “clowns” in a national psychological newspaper by an individual given numerous awards by APA and its divisions and who is often in APA governance. This, sadly, is only a partial list of the attacks on critics. In none of these instances did people in APA leadership positions stand up to defend the right of critics to speak. These actions were all undertaken against those who sought to uncover the collusion that was denied by Association leadership, including this Board and the current CEO only a few months ago.

That is the background to our meeting today to discuss how the APA should respond to the crisis facing the Association, the profession, and the country. I suspect that some of you have not yet fully grasped the magnitude of this crisis. As the result of its collusion, the APA is likely to become the public face of torture. The press storm will be fierce. Editorials will condemn the Association’s actions. Congress members will weigh in. Human rights groups, frustrated with the lack of accountability for torture, will be lining up to raise money off of suing the APA. There may be a decade of lawsuits, draining the budget and staff and elected officials’ time. Members will flee and young psychologists will be even more reluctant to join. And the Association’s 501©(3) nonprofit status may be threatened.

More importantly, if not handled correctly, torture collusion will become the public face of the profession we love. There is little doubt that the APA’s actions will go down in history books next to the chapter on the Tuskegee and Guatemalan syphilis experiments. The actions we take in the coming weeks, months, and years will determine how that chapter ends.

I would like to end by outlining what I believe are the fundamental principles that should guide the APA’s actions forward. These are: contrition, accountability, transparency, inclusiveness, and genuine change. Notice that I did not list “healing” or “reconciliation.” Healing and reconciliation are needed, certainly, but this is not the time to talk of them. Before healing can start, we need painful surgery to remove the tumor that our work and the Hoffman Report demonstrate have been at the heart of the APA for the last decade.

Now Steven will describe the preliminary steps necessary to start removing this tumor.

Steven Reisner Comments:

Following on Stephen's comments I want to reiterate: There is a cancer on the APA. You here will have to decide whether to do the necessary surgery or whether you will preside over the death of the association:

There are four issues here:

1. The APA sacrificed its reputation and independence – perhaps its 501c3 tax exempt status – to align its policies with those of the CIA and the DOD. This was an active campaign, with constant behind the scenes consultation, in order to do the bidding of these agencies, first the CIA, then the DOD.

2. There was an active campaign to undermine the will of the membership and of the council when they attempted to institute ethical restrictions on such activity. Simultaneously efforts were made to prop up and expand opposing efforts in support of such activity. Sometimes efforts were made to create opposing efforts to such activity. Thus APA ceased being a member-driven or democratic organization. The letter and spirit of the organizations by-laws were thwarted in favor of this secret agenda pushed by a staff that is supposed to be neutral and facilitative of the will of membership and governance. Instead staff manipulated the council and the membership.

3. There was a public relations campaign directed to deceive the public and to manipulate governance. To the public the PR campaign made the false claims that APA was acting independently for human rights at the behest of its membership, while in fact it was doing the opposite. Within the organization there was a campaign to influence and manipulate those who opposed the policy or were uninformed and to bully those who would not be manipulated.

4. All of this was done to advance a program of torture and abuse. It continued long after that program and the psychologists’ role in that program were public knowledge. If this level of manipulation and deception were done solely to secretly promote a government agenda, it would be a scandal; the fact that it was done to support torture and abusive monitoring of and research on detainees, is more than a scandal – it reaches the level of support for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The numbers of APA staff and members of governance involved actively in this disgrace is staggering. It began with a few and rapidly incorporated increasing numbers from top to bottom.

Before I lay out what we believe APA must do, I want to make clear what you are dealing with. If the report is released on July 20th, there will be front-page articles in every major newspaper in this country and around the world on July 21st.

The headlines will read: Report Finds APA Leadership Colluded With Bush Administration in Support of Torture.

What will the subheading read?
“Many named remain in leadership positions”
or
“APA removes tainted leadership in response to investigation”

This is not a PR problem. This is a survival of the association problem. And there is no good way to get through this. You will face numerous lawsuits and secondary investigations. You will face a hemorrhage of membership and the loss of public trust. And APA is going to lose its central leadership of the past decade and a half.
--------------
I will now follow on Stephen’s list of five essential categories of steps that must be taken if the association has a chance of surviving:

Contrition,
Accountability,
Transparency,
Inclusiveness
Genuine Change

Contrition

· Let’s be clear that contrition is not a PR maneuver. Contrition requires thoroughgoing acknowledgement, remorse and change. APA must publicly acknowledge the depth and scope of this failure.

· Apology to all affected – to the people harmed (detainees), it includes the public and the congress (for not upholding public trust and deceiving them), to the profession, members, former member and non-members for undermining our ethical foundations, opening us up to ridicule and scorn, and damaging our reputation. And to Jean Maria Arrigo.

· I would like to see an op-ed written by APA leadership in the Times expressing this contrition.

Accountability and Housecleaning

· Staff involved must be fired
· Members involved must be banned from governance
· Bring ethics charges where appropriate.
· More importantly, APA must publicly recommend state ethics charges where appropriate.
· Make sure there is no hint of conflicts of interest in any part of governance or staff
· Those found to be part of the collusion should be stripped of association awards, standing and honors.
· And then you can give a special award to Jean Maria for being willing to stand up to an onslaught of power and manipulation that no one in this room was willing to stand up to.

I will start with staff. I see that some of the people who need to go are in this room. That in itself tells me that you don’t really yet understand the seriousness of your situation. I want to say that this list is possibly incomplete, because I haven’t yet read every page of the report.

Staff to be fired
Anderson, Honaker, Gilfoyle, Farberman, Garrison, Kelly, Mumford, Behnke.

Governance prohibition effective immediately
Levant, Koocher, Banks, Dunivin, Moorehead-Slaughter, James, Deleon, Gelles, Newman, Gravitz, Shumate, Breckler, Strassberger, Sternberg, Matarrazo, and Anton

Recusal for conflict of interest and investigation of role required
Strickland

APA needs to recommend to Division and State Association that they do the same.

But housecleaning is a small piece of what is necessary for full accountability.
How do we hold leadership and governance itself accountable?
How do we answer the question, how did this happen and what must we do to insure it doesn’t happen again?

We must have a thoroughgoing and independent institutional review. We need to appoint a blue ribbon panel to evaluate the organizational processes, structures, procedures and culture that allowed this to happen.

The panel must recommend changes in processes, structures and procedures geared to preventing this kind of power manipulation from happening again. It must review APA’s overly close ties to military, intelligence agencies and government; it must in particular look at the potential for corruption in the directorates, in particular the ethics office, the ethics committee and the science directorate. It must investigate the APA voting processes and investigate the opaque entity that counts our votes: Intelliscan

It must further address:

· The power of staff and how it oversteps its institutional bounds
· The progressive minimization of the oversight role and authority of Council and restore its authority and responsibility
· Investigate how staff managed to impede the will of Council and prevent it from happening again (e.g., 1.02, statue of limitations).

We need a committee of ethicists to redesign APA ethics policy and procedures. It may be true that 1.02 was not changed with torture in mind – the fact that it and other standards were weakened under the influence of APAIT is a second scandal unto itself that must be investigated. We also need to reopen ethics cases closed as part of this conspiracy. And if those to be investigated are no longer members, we must recommend state board investigation.

There must be a financial accounting, including DOD, CIA and government money, awards, fellowships and quid pro quos.

We must refer this report and its findings to the FBI and we must cooperate fully in any ensuing investigation.

We must also refer the report to the appropriate Congressional committees, as per Senator Feinstein’s request. These committees include Senate Select CI, SASC, Senate Judiciary, and Senate Committee Health and human services and their counterparts in the House of Representatives. (Like the PENS report)

Policy change

All policies regarding APA and national security must be annulled, including the approval of operational psychology as a subspecialty.

Review of the ethics of national security and operational psychology:

Blue ribbon panel #2 to do a thoroughgoing independent ethical review of the role of psychologists in national security operations. JMA should be a part of such a panel, along with internationally recognized medical ethicists and human rights advocates.

Moratorium on participation in national security interrogation and detention operations during the review process.

No statute of limitation on TCID ethics charges, automatic ethics committee investigation for TCID charges when these arise in the context of national security operations, detention or interrogation activities.

We need to develop guidelines for undertaking such investigations.

For Non-members, APA has to recommend full investigation from the state boards in national security sites and offer them guidelines.

Transparency

Let this be the last time that APA discussions of such import are held in secret. We need to make all such discussions transparent and easily accessible. We also need to report in plain language:
· The salaries and perks of staff
· The lobbying APA does
· Who gets to represent APA to congress and government and how such people are chosen.
· Anything else members of council, the membership, or the public wants to know or should be informed of.

We need to make all our deliberations and actions transparent, including these discussions.

We should have APA books publish the Hoffman report; The American Psychologist and the Monitor should publish the Executive Summary.

We should deposit the entire record of the Hoffman investigation deposited into the APA PENS Debate Collection at the archive of the University of Colorado at Boulder.

And we should call for a Congressional investigation into the role of health professionals and health professional organizations roles in support of the torture program and invite the other health professional organizations to do the same.

Inclusiveness

All stakeholders must be represented in these discussions. These include the broader psychological community, including those who opposed now-tainted APA actions when they occurred and the hundreds or thousands who quit the APA because they recognized this complicity while the elected leadership and staff denied it. In addition, equally important stakeholders are the medical ethics community, human rights advocates, Congress (as seen by the expressed desire of Sen. Feinstein to review the report), and the broader public, as attested to by the extensive press interest in our April report. All of these have a stake in the decisions and initiatives you and we undertake today and in the coming weeks.

Ultimately, and importantly, we must set aside a time in August for a lengthy Town Hall Meeting at the convention where we give the membership a chance to discuss these revelations

Genuine Change - ???

Stephen Soldz
Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis
ssoldz@bgsp.edu

Ethics Process Fails at APA, Psychologists Demand Review

Two psychologists with the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology have written an open letter to current American Psychological Association (APA) President Suzanne Bennett Johnson. The letter excoriates the APA Ethics Office for refusing to censure blatant cases of psychologist involvement in torture or other related crimes.

Doctors Steven Reisner and Trudy Bond review three cases that were brought to APA on charges of ethics violations -- Michael Gelles, John Leso, and Larry James. The letter is reprinted below, reproduced from its online posting here.

I was pleased to see that some of my own investigations into psychologist involvement in torture were referenced by Reisner and Bond, in particular my work on the Daniel King-Michael Gelles case.

APA Confirms It Exonerated Gelles

On August 8, 2010 I received an email from APA Communications Director Rhea Farberman. I had written to her after I'd seen a copy of an unpublished letter she had written to USA Today. According to Farberman, she had written to the paper because they were going to publish an op-ed by attorney Jonathan Turley on Gelles and the Daniel King case. She "wanted to let the USA Today editorial page staff know that at least one of Mr. Turley’s assertions was incorrect." The op-ed was subsequently cancelled.

While Reisner and Bond state in their Open Letter (italics in original): "The Ethics Committee apparently found that Dr. Gelles’ behavior did not violate APA ethics," Farberman confirmed she had written the letter to USA Today, and told me in the August 8 email (bold emphasis in original): "APA did investigate the allegations against Dr. Gelles and found no violations of the APA ethics code."

In the unpublished letter by Farberman to USA Today, written after the 2009 summer APA convention, where former King attorney Jonathan Turley had spoken about the King case and Gelles, the APA Communications Director wrote:

• Mr. Turley asserts that APA ignored his complaint. That is totally untrue. In April of 2001 a complaint was filed against an APA member, Dr. Michael Gelles. As a result of this complaint, filed by Mr. Turley, an ethics investigation was initiated and a formal ethics case was opened.

• Material relevant to the investigation was provided to APA by Mr. Turley who as the complainant’s representative received correspondence from the Ethics Office regarding this case.

• The complainant was provided multiple opportunities to submit information. Materials submitted by Mr. Turley included a videotape which was part of the record and thoroughly reviewed. According to APA’s procedures, the record also included Dr. Gelles’ responses to the charges against him.

• The full APA Ethics Committee reviewed the case and, on the basis of all the facts in the record, including materials provided by Mr. Turley and Dr. Gelles’ responses, determined that there had been no violation of the APA Ethics Code. On September 26, 2002, the APA Ethics Office informed the complainant through Mr. Turley of the final outcome of this matter.

I tried on multiple occasions to get comment from Turley, but he never responded to requests. Nevertheless, another of King's attorney's did speak to me, and revealed that not long after the Gelles interview, Daniel King made a suicide attempt or gesture. I wrote up this interview with former JAG Robert A. Bailey in a follow-up article to my first King-Gelles story, Broken Faith: How a Navy Psychologist Drove A U.S. Prisoner to Attempt Suicide.

I followed up the Aug. 8 email and asked Farberman if APA could "verify if the ethics investigation also contacted Daniel King's military JAG attorneys, Lieutenant Robert Bailey or Lieutenant Matthew Freedus, or reviewed their testimony to the Senate Intelligence committee as part of the ethics investigation?" I also asked if APA would share the video of the King interrogation, if they had a copy.

Farberman refused to make further comment. "We will not be releasing any further materials related to the investigation and review of Mr. Turley’s allegations against Dr. Gelles beyond what I have already told you," she said in her email response.

Actually, what Farberman confirms is far worse than what Turley originally claimed. He said that APA ignored the ethics charge. Farberman insists the charges were investigated but APA found Gelles did nothing wrong. What that means is that from APA's standpoint, misrepresentation of roles, lying, and participation in an abusive interrogation, using sleep deprivation on a prisoner, is totally fine with APA, and such behavior doesn't even merit the most minor of rebukes. (For more details on the King case, see the link above.)

I'd add that I also wrote on the role Col. Larry James played in supervising the rendition of child prisoners from Afghanistan to Guantanamo. See Guantanamo Psychologist Led Rendition and Imprisonment of Afghan Boys, Complaint Charges. As one example of James' crime we have the testimony of Mohammed Ismail Agha, age 13, who told the Washington Post, he was "put on a plane with other prisoners, chained by the wrists and ankles, with a hood placed over his head." None of the parents of these children were informed what had happened to their sons.

We all owe a debt of gratitude to psychologists Steven Reisner and Trudy Bond, and other psychologists and medical professionals who have tried to stand up and get their professional associations, and the members of same, to be accountable. It is surely a dark, dark stain on the history of the helping professions to see them twisted into their exact opposites, agencies of cruelty and despair.

What follows is the text of the Open Letter. All italics were in the original.

Open Letter to

President Suzanne Bennett Johnson

American Psychological Association

A.P.A. has taken a very strong stance against the use of torture, inhumane, and degrading treatment, and if anyone is able to identify A.P.A. members who have been involved in such activities, we will take disciplinary action.
-- Gerald Koocher, former APA President, speaking on Democracy Now! (June 16, 2006)

September 18, 2012

Dear Dr. Johnson:

We are two psychologists committed to making certain that psychologists implicated in torture and prisoner abuse are held accountable by oversight bodies for their egregious ethical violations. We believe the public trust and the reputation of our profession depend upon such accountability.

We are writing at this time regarding ethics complaints filed with the APA Ethics Office against three psychologists who remain APA members in good standing: Dr. Michael Gelles, Dr. Larry James and Dr. John Francis Leso. Based on undisputed facts, these cases cry out for investigation and appropriate censure. We would like to briefly review some of the evidence for these complaints and express our concern with regard to the status of each complaint.

Attorney Jonathan Turley filed a complaint with the APA Ethics Office in 2001 against Dr. Michael Gelles for alleged complicity in the harsh treatment of US Naval Officer Daniel King, who had been accused of espionage.[i] [ii] King was held for 520 days without charge by the Navy Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) and interrogated for 29 days in 15-20 hour sessions. During this period, Navy investigators gave King multiple polygraph tests and lied to him about the results. By the end of the month, King had signed a confession despite having no recollection of the actions to which he admitted. Prior to his military hearing, King had become suicidal and felt he was losing his grip on reality, since he could not remember the event. He requested a consultation with a psychologist to help him remember, via hypnosis or truth serum, and King was sent to Dr. Gelles for a psychological consultation.[iii] [iv] [v] According to testimony of King’s defense attorney before the Senate Intelligence Committee, “Gelles virtually ignored the statement of King that he had suicidal thoughts…two days before the interview.”[vi] He focused instead on pressuring King to give the agents “corroborating” evidence, offering to hypnotize King if he did so. These allegations are supported by the videotape of Dr. Gelles’ session with King (made by NCIS without consent) which was provided by Turley to the Ethics Committee. (Ultimately, all charges against King were dismissed when a military judge concluded there was insufficient evidence even to sustain a determination of probable cause.[vii])

The Ethics Committee apparently found that Dr. Gelles’ behavior did not violate APA ethics; in fact, subsequent to this case, Dr. Gelles was chosen by the Director of the Ethics Office to sit on the PENS Task Force and help develop ethical guidelines for national security interrogations.

On December 5, 2007, Dr. Trudy Bond filed a complaint with the APA Ethics Office against Dr. Larry James for his alleged involvement in the harsh treatment of detainees. Among numerous ethical violations, Dr. James oversaw the transport of three child prisoners – one 12 years old and two 13 years old[viii] – from Bagram, Afghanistan to Guantánamo, where Dr. James was the Chief Behavioral Science Consultation Team member (“BSCT #1”).[ix] [x] According to the New York Times, during transport the boys were “put on a plane with other prisoners, chained by the wrists and ankles, with a hood” placed over their heads. At Guantánamo, Dr. James oversaw the daily interrogations of these boys. For ten months the boys’ families were not told what had happened to their children, who had been “disappeared” by American authorities. The United Nations Committee Against Torture has held that such “disappearance” is torture – not only for the subject, but also for the family of the child taken without public acknowledgement. In addition, there is no dispute that such treatment of children is a violation of international law.

The ethics complaint against Col. James was dismissed by the APA Ethics Office without investigation.

In 2006, Dr. Alice Shaw filed a complaint against Dr. John Leso with the APA Ethics Office, which was never officially acknowledged. On April 15, 2007, Dr. Trudy Bond filed a similar complaint against Dr. Leso, which also was not acknowledged. Dr. Bond refiled the complaint on September 4, 2007. That complaint was formally acknowledged by APA on February 27, 2008. Declassified U.S. government documents indicate that while serving at the U.S. Station at Guantánamo Bay Dr. Leso, in his position as BSCT #1 (he preceded Dr. James in this position), co-authored a document recommending that a series of escalating physically and psychologically abusive interrogation tactics be used on detainees there. Many of these techniques were applied to Guantánamo detainee “063,” Mohammed al-Qahtani, under Dr. Leso’s direct supervision.[xi] [xii] Susan Crawford, the Convening Authority for the Guantánamo Military Commissions appointed by George W. Bush, dismissed the case against al-Qahtani precisely because “his treatment met the legal definition of torture.” Many of the techniques and conditions that appeared in Dr. Leso’s written interrogation document were subsequently applied to other men and boys held at Guantánamo and eventually to detainees held in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now, more than five years after filing, the ethics complaint against Dr. Leso still remains unadjudicated by the APA Ethics Office (apparently the longest unadjudicated case in APA history).

The results of the case against Dr. Leso in New York clearly establish why the APA must take the lead in such cases. Unlike the NYOPD, the APA’s standards for psychologists do not permit the sidestepping of ethical issues through legal gymnastics. As the APA Ethics Code states:

This Ethics Code applies only to psychologists' activities that are part of their scientific, educational, or professional roles as psychologists. Areas covered include but are not limited to the clinical, counseling, and school practice of psychology; research; teaching; supervision of trainees; public service; policy development; social intervention; development of assessment instruments; conducting assessments; educational counseling; organizational consulting; forensic activities; program design and evaluation; and administration.

Most states follow the lead of the APA Ethics Office in determining ethical standards and in adjudicating cases.

Because of the Ethics Committee’s delay in adjudicating the Leso case, Dr. Steven Reisner initiated an ethics complaint against Dr. Leso with the New York Office of Professional Discipline (NYOPD), which grants his license to practice.[xiii] The NYOPD and the New York Attorney General acknowledged the fact that, “Dr. Leso, apparently, was asked to use his skills as a weapon; not to help the mental health of the detainees.” But the NYOPD used these very facts to determine that – since the aim of Dr. Leso’s activity at Guantánamo was explicitly to cause harm, and since there was no “therapist-patient relationship between Dr. Leso and any of the Guantánamo detainees” – Dr. Leso’s professional behavior could not be considered the “practice of psychology” under the New York Education Law and therefore the ethics code did not apply. The case was dismissed without investigation.

Dr. Reisner pursued the case against Leso in New York State Supreme Court. The Court refused to overrule NYOPD, not on the merits of the case, but based on a technicality: that harm to the profession at large notwithstanding, Dr. Reisner could not show that he had been personally harmed by Dr. Leso’s activities. But harm to the profession of psychology is precisely a central issue for the American Psychological Association. The ability of our association to establish and uphold ethical principles is the very basis upon which we garner and maintain public trust. And that trust has been sorely challenged by the failure of the APA Ethics Office to determine when a psychologist’s behavior in national security interrogations has violated our basic, time-honored ethical principles.

In light of the circumstances we have described here, we are requesting that you, as President of the APA:

1. Open a full review of the practices of the APA Ethics Office with regard to the investigation and adjudication of cases alleging torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in general, and the cases of Drs. Leso, James, and Gelles in particular.

2. Ensure that the case against Dr. Leso now receives a prompt adjudication, five years after it was filed.

3. Move to rescind the current statute of limitations on cases of torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment so that there can be accountability for psychologists who participate in classified abuses whenever the evidence of such abuses becomes available.

Sincerely,

Trudy Bond
Steven Reisner

Endnotes

[i] Kaye, J. (2009, July 24). Former Top Navy Psychologist Involved in Pre-9/11 Prisoner Abuse Case. Retrieved September 7, 2012, from Invictus: http://valtinsblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/former-top-navy-psychologist-involved_24.html
[ii] Turley, J. (2007, August 20). Testimony in Senate Intelligence Committee on Abuses By Naval Intelligence and the Daniel King Case Published 1, Aug. Retrieved September 7, 2012, from http://jonathanturley.org/2007/08/20/testimony-in-senate-intelligence-committee-on-abuses-by-naval-intelligence-and-the-daniel-king-case/
[iii] (Turley, 2007)
[iv] (Kaye, 2009)
[v] Soldz, S. (2009, December 7). The "Ethical Interrogation": The Myth of Michael Gelles and the al-Qahtani Interrogation. Retrieved September 7, 2012, from The PsySR Blog: http://www.psysr.org/blog/2009/12/07/michael-gelles-and-the-al-qahtani-interrogation/
[vi] (Turley, 2007)
[vii] (Kaye, 2009)
[viii] James, L. (2008). Fixing Hell. Grand Central Pub. p. 43.
[ix] International Human Rights Clinic. Public Accountability for U.S. Doctors and Psychologists Involved in Torture. Retrieved September 7, 2012, from Human Rights Program Harvard Law School: http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/hrp/clinic/current%20projects/current_americas_projects.html
[x] Center for Constitutional Rights. Evidence: Larry James. Retrieved September 7, 2012, from When Healers Harm: http://whenhealersharm.org/sources-call-for-an-investigation-on-larry-james/
[xi] Center For Constitutional Rights. John Leso. Retrieved September 7, 2012, from When Healers Harm: http://whenhealersharm.org/john-leso/
[xii] UC Berkeley School of Law. Do No Harm? Intelligence Ethics, Health Professionals and the Torture Debate. Retrieved September 7, 2012, from BerkeleyLaw - University of California: http://www.law.berkeley.edu/8307.htm
[xiii] The Center for Justice & Accountability. Reisner v. Leso: Accountability for One of the Psychologists Behind the Guantánamo Abuses . Retrieved September 7, 2012, from The Center for Justice & Accountability: http://cja.org/article.php?list=type&type=412

APA "Casebook" on Psychologist Ethics and Interrogations Fails to Convince

A new proposed "casebook" on psychologist ethics in national security settings, written by the Ethics Committee of the American Psychological Association (APA), tells psychologists that when assessing whether an interrogation technique is abusive or not, they should consider, among other factors, whether there are "data to support that the technique is effective in gathering accurate information." This determination, which places the needs of the military or intelligence gathering entity above that of the person the psychologist is examining, demonstrates how blatantly unethical it is for psychologists to participate in these interrogations.

While it's shocking that APA would call upon psychologists to weigh an interrogation technique's "effectiveness" with other ethical standards, it's even crazier when one considers it took them six years to write this up, having been originally tasked with writing an "ethics casebook" for interrogations back in 2005.

The vignettes that would compose the "casebook" were apparently posted (PDF) by APA for public comments last June, but APA failed to notify their membership, or really anyone. The earliest comment posted was on August 18. In a comment posted by Nina Thomas, a psychologist who was one of the few non-military, non-intelligence-linked members on the 2005 Psychological Ethics and National Security (PENS) panel hastily assembled to formulate APA policy on psychologists and interrogations, Thomas decried the lack of notification of the membership.

"A barely three month period for responses does not seem adequate when we have not previously known anything about the progress on this work," Thomas wrote. She also indicated that progress on the casebook's development had not been regularly reported to APA's Council of Representatives. (The mandate to produce such a "casebook" goes back to 2005.) Thomas had other criticisms as well, writing, "It is my hope and aim that the Ethics Committee will seriously rethink its charge and return to Council with a request for a revised mandate."

The petition resolution affirmed by the membership of APA [in 2008] makes perfectly clear that psychologists are prohibited from working in settings in which people are held outside of or in violation of either international law or the U.S. Constitution. The only exceptions to this prohibition are in cases in which a psychologist is working directly for the person being detained, for an independent third party working to protect human rights or providing treatment to military personnel. These major and ultimately most important points do not have sufficient presence in this casebook as currently devised.

Over and over the APA "casebook" advises members to seek "consultation" about any difficult ethical situation, while advising psychologists to rely on a host of human rights documents, APA resolutions, and the APA ethics code to "guide" them. But psychologists shouldn't even be in these torture settings to begin with!

The petition resolution referenced by Thomas was a member-initiated petition that was passed in a referendum vote in 2008 by a membership unhappy with APA's policy on interrogations, and implemented by APA's Council in 2009. The resolution states that "psychologists may not work in settings where persons are held outside of, or in violation of, either International Law (e.g., the UN Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions) or the US Constitution (where appropriate), unless they are working directly for the persons being detained or for an independent third party working to protect human rights."

But APA has adamantly refused to set up a process that would actually determine when such a detention setting is in violation of the law, even while sententiously expressing "grave concern" over reports of torture and abuse at U.S. military and CIA interrogation and detention centers. According to one "casebook" instruction, "the psychologist ... would need to determine whether the site is a lawful or unlawful detention setting." If APA can't or won't make such a determination, how can they expect an individual psychologist to do this, and feel they will be backed up by their organization for doing so?

APA has refused to follow the policy of the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association in instructing their membership not to participate in interrogations. Indeed, it was the contention of the 2005 APA PENS panel that "it is consistent with the APA Ethics Code for psychologists to serve in consultative roles to interrogation and information-gathering processes for national security-related purposes, as psychologists have a long-standing tradition of doing in other law enforcement contexts."

Nothing in the new "casebook" is really any different than the position APA derived in the 2005 PENS report (PDF). The psychologist is supposed to walk an ethical tightrope while serving as "consultant" to interrogations, admonished to report torture or other cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment (as defined by law), and to engage in research beneficial to national security aims. All the while, APA's seemingly benign admonishments cover a policy of support to detention and interrogation policies that amount to torture, using various legalistic loopholes built into a 2002 rewrite of the Ethics Code to allow the unethical use of psychologist expertise to brain-trust the torture.

APA concludes that psychologists should report torture to the "appropriate authorities." Furthermore, "If the psychologist was not satisfied with the result of reporting such concerns, the psychologist would consider other reporting avenues such as the judge advocate and/or the inspector general." It all sounds good, until you realize that such reporting rarely goes anywhere, and it beggars all knowledge of social psychology to believe that one individual will buck an entire system and put their careers on the line to protest. This is even more true when one considers that previous investigations of detainee torture have either minimized or covered up significant aspects of the torture.

The one case that APA often cites where a psychologist protested torture concerns NCIS psychologist Michael Gelles, who protested the torture protocol for Mohamed Al Qahtani. Two salient points are connected with that case. One is that it didn't stop the torture, both of Al Qahtani, nor the spread of the torture program throughout the Department of Defense. Two, Gelles was not just protesting a torture protocol, he was proposing a different program of psychological torture based primarily on the application of extreme isolation of the prisoner, who was reportedly already manifesting psychotic behavior.

Another example of the impotency of the policy of protest concerns the CIA torture of Abu Zubaydah. Planned by two former SERE psychologists, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, the "enhanced interrogation techniques" applied to Zubaydah, which included stress positions, placing him into a closed box with insects, waterboarding, sleep deprivation and more, led then chief operational psychologist for the C.I.A.'s counterterrorism center, R. Scott Shumate to leave the interrogation "in disgust, leaving before the most dire tactics had commenced," according to a 2007 article by Katherine Eban in Vanity Fair.

There is no evidence that Shumate protested the torture up the chain of command. Indeed, the torture continued, and was extended to others. Shumate, whatever he did, was rewarded by being put on the APA PENS panel.

APA cannot help but confuse the "casebook" instructions by mixing use of the ethics code as a guideline with advice laid down by DoD in the Army Field Manual for interrogations: "'If the proposed approach technique were used by the enemy against one of your fellow soldiers, would you believe the soldier had been abused?'.... if the answer to this question is yes, 'the contemplated action should not be conducted.'" The problem is, as has been amply documented, it is the military and/or CIA psychologists who are proposing the "techniques" to begin with, or following orders from those higher in the chain of command (see here, and here, and here, for instance).

Psychologists Speak Out

Dan Aalbers, one of the authors of the APA petition resolution told The Dissenter, "I didn't understand until fairly recently how few obligations remain in the APA's ethics code: if you use these quite useful pdfs [comparing the 1992 and 2002 ethical codes] and search for words and phrases that denote obligation -- 'must' 'should', 'do not' and 'obligation' itself -- you will quickly find that most of these phrases appear in the 1992 revision of the ethics code and, more often than not, the 2002 code saddles psychologists with no obligation greater than due consideration. Psychologists 'must' consider the consequences their actions -- but they are not prevented from doing much.... The 2002 ethics code should be thrown out and the 1992 code -- with its strictures on informed consent, on clarification of role, and obligations to avoid multiple relationships -- reinstated."

One good example of what Aalbers is talking about is Section 3.04 of the Ethics Code, to which the "casebook" authors often refer. It states, "Psychologists take reasonable steps to avoid harming their clients/patients..." Not "Do Not Harm," but the taking of "reasonable steps." Indeed, until the membership and some of the human rights community raised a hullaballoo, and even then only after eight years of stalling, did APA change its code last year regarding ethical conflicts with organizational authorities. Before this change, since 2002 the APA has instructed its membership that resolution of such conflicts could be resolved by simply following the authority in question (like the military) and not the ethical standard, should they be in conflict. Critics called this the Nuremberg Defense, referencing many a Nazi's defense against war crimes with the refrain that he was "only following orders."

Another psychologist who has been active in opposing APA's policies on interrogation, former president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility Stephen Soldz, also told The Dissenter that he was worried about aspects of the Ethics Code that relate to research. "Remember," Soldz said, "that [Ethics Codes] 8.05 ['Dispensing with Informed Consent'] and 8.07 ['Deception in Research'] still remain. 8.05 removes the requirement for informed consent for institutional research. And 8.07 raises the bar for psychological distress to rule out research deception, using language similar to the Convention Against Torture's definition of psychological torture. Meanwhile, the High Value Detainee Interrogation Group currently has former APA fellow Susan Brandon as Research Director. The HIG may have conducted and is apparently intending to conduct research on detainees. There are persistent rumors that research on detainees occurred as recent as last year (I'm not saying it ended, just have no current sources) in both Iraq and Afghanistan. While we don't know the nature of this research, there are some indications in the press that raise alarm.

"All this is simply to say that the interrogation issue is not a matter of the Bush administration and the past. Rather, it is still alive. And we should remember that research may have played a larger role in the need for psychologists than many of us originally realized."

Martha Davis, a forensic psychologist who has just completed a documentary about psychologists, interrogations and torture, "Doctors of the Dark Side," in a statement to The Dissenter cautioned that no fine tuning of the "casebook" would make things better (for the record, I was interviewed by Davis as part of the documentary):

I worry that IF the Ethics Committee were ever to do the right thing, extend the deadline, open the discussion up, and somehow put together another, much better Casebook that incorporated these suggestions and other good ones, then in effect, the casebook process would reinforce and "legitimize" the practice of having psychologists directly involved in interrogations. Every significant health and human rights organization has condemn this practice except the APA. The simple versions of "no direct involvement in interrogations" adopted by the AMA and ApA are understandable to everyone and the only way to guarantee that doctors "keep in their lane" etc., etc. We know so much more now than we did in 2005 -- so much of it ominous and disturbing. The practice is spreading beyond "national security" interrogations to US law enforcement settings. BSCT psychologists violate at least 10 parts of the APA Ethics Code (and that's without torture), and the role is incompatible with the new Specialty Guidelines of Forensic Psychology.

Len Rubenstein, Senior Scholar, Center for Human Rights and Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, wrote an op-ed at Huffington Post last week, indicating he believed that a recent rewrite by APA of its forensic psychology guidelines should apply to psychologists and interrogations. Rubenstein, calling the PENS ethical guidelines "ethically untenable, little more than a shabby rationalization for severe ethical violations," noted that APA's new Specialty Guidelines for Forensic Psychologists call for complete transparency with the client, and eschews use of deception, both the opposite of military/CIA practice.

The guidelines also render intolerable the conflict of interest at the heart of the psychologists' role -- at once to advance intelligence gathering and to act as a "safety officer." The conflict, moreover, is likely to be resolved in favor of pressing for information, since the psychologists involved are classified as combatants, not clinicians (though they must be licensed to practice), and assigned to an intelligence chain of command. Whereas PENS sought to fudge the conflict by urging a "delicate balance of ethical considerations" the Specialty Guidelines insist on adherence to core obligations of integrity and fairness and avoidance of involvement in roles with conflicts of interest.

But according to forensic psychologist Karen Franklin, "These guidelines are not enforceable. And, like all such professional guidelines, they will be subject to diverse interpretations."

And it is in such a forest of conflicting interpretations, vague instructions, unenforceable prohibitions against torture, and the like, that APA hides complicity in the U.S. torture program, having determined that "national security psychology" is the wave of the future. The lack of accountability for psychologist collaboration with torture is the background for the entire discussion. It is more incumbent than ever that psychologists and other mental health professionals speak out against this amalgam of psychological science and practice with the art of coercive interrogation and persuasion, of the marriage of psychology with torture.

Also posted at Firedoglake/The Dissenter